Ultimate Guide to Wild Edibles: Spring Wild Edibles

4 Spring Wild Edibles You Don’t Want to Miss

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Spring is a fabulous time to forage for wild edibles.  All the new plant growth means lots of wild greens for salads and cooked vegetables. As the spring unfolds, different wild edibles come into their prime and then fade quickly away. It’s all about timing to harvest each wild edible at their delicious best. Foraging for this free food that some consider weeds is a cherished spring pastime.

In previous posts I have covered ramps or wild garlic and fiddleheads in depth. In this post, I share four of my additional favorite spring wild edibles. You will find information about how to identify each one, where to forage for them, and one of my favorite ways to prepare them.

Collecting and eating wild foods requires attention to ethics and safety. Use these do’s and don’t’s of foraging as a guide.

I’ve done numerous hikes in New England where I suddenly discover a patch of wild edibles. In the spring I usually carry my wild edible daypack. My foraging daypack contains reusable plastic bags, kitchen scissors, trowel, jackknife, a field guide to wild edibles, a water bottle for drinking water and washing plants, and a pack towel to wipe the dirt off my hands. My go-to field guide is the Peterson Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants.

Spring Wild Edibles: Nettle

Nettle is the superfood of the wild plant world.  It’s chocked full of Vitamin A, C, and K, iron, calcium, and much more. Its anti-inflammatory properties make it a popular herbal remedy for such conditions as arthritis and seasonal allergies.

Nettle leaves have stinging hairs that cause a rash or itching when touched. Fortunately for wild food fans, the stinging hairs of nettle are denatured by heat. Therefore, cooking or drying nettle makes it harmless.

Foraging nettles

There are two kinds of nettles I use in my wild edible cooking. Stinging nettle is dark green and grows in disturbed soil areas. You can usually find stinging nettle in abandoned fields, ditches, and near streams and lakes.

Wood nettle is a lighter green with broader, more rounded leaves. It can be found in moist sunny hardwood forests and beside loamy streambeds.

Both kinds of nettles are prolific and invasive so they can be harvested heavily without harming the plant population. Gloves are recommended to prevent being stung but I use a plastic produce bag draped over my hand to pick when I don’t have gloves. I snap off the tender nettle tops and then turn the plastic bag inside out over the nettles to end up with a neat bag of green goodness.

Cooking nettles when I’m camping is simple. Wash them and then saute in butter until tender. Squeeze a little lemon and a dash of salt and enjoy this spinach of the woods. They also make a wonderful sun tea rich in vitamins and anti-oxidants.

Nepali nettle soup

I was out recently collecting stinging nettles for my favorite nettle soup when I saw three women emerge from the woods with bursting bags of greens.  Curious, I asked them what they had in the bags.  They said nettles but made a point that they were not the stinging nettles I was collecting.  They had harvested wood nettles which they insisted tasted better than stinging nettles.  The women were from Nepal and told me about the wonderful Nepali nettle soup they made which was a tradition in their villages.  I asked for the recipe.  I searched where they told me to look and harvested a big bag of wood nettles to try out their Nepali soup recipe at home.  Called Sishnu soup, the turmeric and garlic complement the taste of the nettles.

Ingredients:

• 2-4 cups nettles (washed)
• ½ cup white rice
• 4 cloves garlic- minced
• ½ tablespoon turmeric powder
• 1-2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 4 cups or more water or vegetable stock

Boil nettles, rice, turmeric, and salt until the rice is cooked and the nettles are tender. Add more liquid if needed.  Heat the butter and sauté the garlic.  Add to the soup and adjust the seasonings.  Ladle into bowls to serve.

Spring Wild Edibles: Cattail

The cattail is a familiar plant to many who recognize the brown sausage-shaped heads growing in swamps or other wet areas. The long brown heads burst into cattail fluff in the fall to disperse their seeds.

While nettle is the superfood of the wild edible world, the cattail is the grocery superstore. So many parts of the cattail can be used depending on the season. In the summer, the young heads can be roasted or boiled and eaten like corn on the cob. Collect cattail pollen in mid to late summer for a protein-packed addition to pancake batter. The roots can be dried to make flour or eaten cooked when they are young. Dipped in oil or wax, the heads make a torch. I use the cattail fluff as a firestarter to catch a spark in my tinder bundle.

Foraging spring cattail

The star parts of the cattail as a spring wild edible are the bottom shoots. Don your muck boots and harvest them from the shallow cattail marsh. A trowel to dig under the water is handy to prevent breaking off the best part of the shoots. Alternately, you can use a knife to cut the shoots off right where they meet the roots. Harvest responsibly by only taking a few from each marsh. Additionally, make sure you are harvesting in a clean water source. Avoid swamps beside roads or near farm fields with pesticide run-off.

Peel off the outer leaves to reveal the white part of the stalk. You can snack on the white part after rinsing it. Or cut off about 6 inches directly below the green part to save for a dish. I think it tastes like a combination of cucumber and unsweetened watermelon.

Preparing cattail

Cattail shoots can be eaten as a cooked vegetable by stir-frying or steaming. However, my favorite way to eat them is with a simple marinade. The shoots prepared this way are reminiscent of hearts of palm but tastier in my opinion.

Cattail Marinade

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 4 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 clove garlic minced

Combine the ingredients in a small bowl. Cut the cattail shoots into 1 inch sections and add to marinade. Marinade 30 minutes. Enjoy as a side dish or on a salad.

Pour the boiling water over the violet flowers in a glass jar. Cover and put the violet water aside until the flavor and color are extracted. Waiting 24 hours is ideal, but you can get away with a half a day. Stain the violet juice into a pot and discard the flowers. It will be an odd bluish color but the lemon will make it a nice pink color depending on how much you add.

Next, follow the pectin directions to make jelly. Bring the violet/lemon water to a full boil. Add the sugar/pectin mixture. Stir until dissolved and returned to a boil. Take off the heat and pour into sterilized jelly jars and seal.

Spring Wild Edibles Wrap-Up

To sum it up, spring is an ideal time to use the outdoors as your farmer’s market. What many consider weeds can be turned into healthy and delicious dishes. The wild edibles featured here are found in the early spring. They grow tough or disappear as summer arrives. However, fear not! There are plenty of summer and fall wild edibles to enjoy.

I’ve shared four of my favorite spring wild edibles here. Check out my posts on fiddleheads and wild ramps for a couple more spring treasures. In addition, there are many more spring plants that are delicious, so grab your wild edible foraging pack and a good guidebook to find out what food is in your own backyard.

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